


just like he already owned it

by thepriestthinksitsthedevil (stubliminalmessaging)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Liam the gym teacher, Louis the high school drama teacher, M/M, Marcel the guidance counselor, Miscommunication, Niall the EA, Secret Crush, Zayn the art teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 16:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14024448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubliminalmessaging/pseuds/thepriestthinksitsthedevil
Summary: “Because you’re in my wedding!” she exclaimed. “You need to buy a suit and get a date.”Louis groaned. “Why do I have to have a date?”“Because I need my pictures to be symmetrical and you need to have a date for that to happen,” Lottie explained. Louis considered for a moment, deciding that he’d ask Zayn, Liam, Niall, or Steve if they’d wanna go with him. It’d be fun, at any rate, and they all knew about Louis’ family at least a little bit so it wouldn’t be awkward. “And before you even think about bringing one of your weird friends, I expect this date to be a boy that you like. Like like.”Or: Louis needs a date. Marcel does nothing but hang out with his cat.





	just like he already owned it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1Diamondinthesun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Diamondinthesun/gifts).



> this was so fun to write!! thanks so much to my giftee for the wonderful prompts - it was hard to choose because they were all fun!
> 
> additional thanks go to lauren femkinkharry on tumblr for the beta <3 i love you lots and appreciate you greatly!!
> 
> anyways here goes!!

“LOUIS!” Louis’ phone screeched at him when he answered his sister’s call. He recoiled, holding his phone an arm’s length away from his ear and still able to hear his sister screaming at him.  
  
“Jesus, Lots,” Louis mumbled when she seemed to get her wailing under control and Louis was able to bring his phone back to his ear, albeit cautiously. She was still babbling, bordering on a pitch only audible to canines, so Louis raised his voice to try to get her attention. “Lottie. Slow down and speak clearly.”  
  
“Tommy proposed!” she exclaimed, and despite how he’d been giving her a hard time, the happiness and love evident in his sister made him smile. Tommy was a good lad and he treated Louis’ sister with respect and love and Louis couldn’t ask for much more than that. “I’m getting married, Lou!”  
  
“That’s great, Lottie. Congratulations!” Louis said, trying to inject energy and enthusiasm into his voice, which Lottie saw through immediately. She gave him hell for not being more excited and he apologized profusely. In his defense, it wasn’t his fault that Lottie called him at the end of the day when he was tired and ready to go home. “When’s the wedding?”  
  
“Funny you should ask,” Lottie answered. “It’s near the end of May.”  
  
Six months, then. But… “Why is it funny that I asked?”  
  
“Because you’re in my wedding!” she exclaimed. “You need to buy a suit and get a date.”  
  
Louis groaned. “Why do I have to have a date?”  
  
“Because I need my pictures to be symmetrical and you need to have a date for that to happen,” Lottie explained. Louis considered for a moment, deciding that he’d ask Zayn, Liam, Niall, or Steve if they’d wanna go with him. It’d be fun, at any rate, and they all knew about Louis’ family at least a little bit so it wouldn’t be awkward. “And before you even think about bringing one of your weird friends, I expect this date to be a boy that you like. _Like_ like.”  
  
Louis sighed heavily, and Lottie told him that six months was plenty of time for him to find someone to bring to the wedding. She went on about his many attributes that made him a suitable partner for any smart man with functioning eyes and Louis tuned her out. Any time his mum called him he got the same speech, and family gatherings were always rife with concerned aunts and uncles who liked to remind him that he wasn’t getting any younger.  
  
“Actually,” Louis blurted out, cutting Lottie off. He could admit that he didn’t have a clue what she had been talking about. “I,” he cleared his throat, balking now that Lottie was paying attention to him. “I have a boyfriend.”  
  
“You don’t have a boyfriend,” Lottie scoffed.  
  
“Yes, I do,” Louis insisted, annoyed in spite of the fact that he was lying to her. “We just started dating.”  
  
“Where did you meet him?” she asked, and Louis sweated for a second before he blurted out that they’d met at work. “Well you should bring him ‘round sometime. I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Lottie said, voice smug. “If he even exists.”  
  
“He exists,” Louis grumbled. “But it’s really new and I don’t want to scare him off. He’ll be at the wedding,” he assured her. “I just don’t want to drag him out to meet the family so soon.”  
  
Louis could practically feel her narrowing her eyes through her silence. “Fine. But I would like to at least meet him before the wedding, if you think your ‘relationship’ can handle that kind of pressure.”  
  
“He’s real and we’re in a real relationship,” Louis told her, hanging up shortly after and wondering where he was going to find a real man to pretend to have a real relationship with.  
  
-  
  
“I thought you said Lottie said you couldn’t invite any of us?” Liam asked, scrolling through his calendar app to check and see if he was free the day of Lottie’s wedding to pretend to be Louis’ boyfriend.  
  
“She’s only heard about you. She doesn’t know what you look like, so we can give you a fake name and then we can tragically break up after the wedding,” Louis explained. He slid a mug of sugary coffee in front of Zayn where he had his head laid down on their usual staff room table. Like a corpse rising from the dead, Zayn slowly lifted his head, groaning exaggeratedly as he did so. He sat up just enough to drink the coffee, and Louis thought about how Liam kept their flat stocked with bendy straws because of how notoriously lazy Zayn was. Perhaps if Louis wasn’t on a mission to find a fake date, he would have time to find a real date and get a real boyfriend and have the kind of disgustingly domestic relationship that Zayn and Liam had.  
  
“Does it matter which ones of us goes?” Liam asked, stirring his own coffee and taking a sip of it. That didn’t sound like a flat-out no, so Louis felt himself edging into being relieved.  
  
“No, you-”  
  
“Goes to what?” Zayn yawned after he’d down half his cup of coffee in one go. He blinked sleepily across the table at Louis, who internally wondered how someone could be so fucking beautiful this early in the morning when Louis knew that he’d just rolled out of bed, let Liam tug some clothes on him and load him into a car. Louis needed at least half an hour to snooze, then he needed a pre-work tea, a shower, and a Greggs sausage roll before he could even begin to function.  
  
“My sister’s wedding,” Louis replied. “She told me I have to come with a date.”  
  
“I don’t want to go to a wedding,” Zayn declared, pouty and dismayed, and Liam chuckled.  
  
“We know,” he said, brushing Zayn’s hair back off his face. “If either of us goes, it’ll be me. I’ve been told I’m a riot at weddings.”  
  
Louis couldn’t imagine sensible, domestic Liam being a riot in any setting. He had seen him at a club before though, and knew that he had a talent for becoming a different person when he danced. He was something of an unexpected wild card when Louis thought about it.  
  
“So you’ll come with me?” Louis asked, hopes thoroughly up. Liam said sure and they made plans to go suit shopping a few weeks later. Unfortunately, they never got to go suit shopping together, because a week after Liam said yes to Louis, his sister got engaged and her wedding happened to be scheduled for the same night as Lottie’s. In a very large cosmic fuck you in Louis’ direction, this meant that Liam and Zayn were both no longer eligible to be his pretend boyfriend because Liam was going to be in his sister’s wedding and Zayn was going to be his date.  
  
“Niall?” Louis asked desperately during their lunch break as soon as Liam broke the news to him. “Please tell me you’re free that day,” he begged, nearly knocking his can of Coke over onto the papers he was grading as he dramatically pleaded with Niall. He was spiteful towards the papers (part of the reason why he’d chosen to become a drama teacher instead of an english teacher was so that he wouldn’t have to mark any fucking papers!) but he didn’t want them to be ruined.  
  
Niall whipped out his phone and looked at his calendar app. He sipped at his chocolate milk with his other hand and frowned down at his phone. “Sorry, mate. Gotta babysit Theo that whole weekend.”  
  
“You can’t bring him?” Louis asked. “I could tell my family you’re a single dad.”  
  
“I’m going out there for the weekend,” Niall told him, and in spite of Niall’s permanent cheekiness and cheerfulness, Louis could tell that he was genuinely disappointed that he couldn’t help Louis out. “Sorry, Lou. You’ll find someone.”  
  
Louis huffed out a huge sigh, wracking his brain for other friends who he could put himself eternally in debt to.  
  
-  
  
As well as being the drama department head, Louis was also the teacher advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance. They had run a charity drag show the week before and Louis had to sign off on the volunteer hours completed by the members of the club. This took him down to the school guidance office, which was not a place that he found himself in frequently. He found the office kind of stuffy and perpetually too-quiet. He much preferred the drama portable that he occupied or going to bug Liam in the gym while he taught his classes.  
  
The guidance office was just as dull as ever, the tables scattered with college catalogues and pamphlets. There was an ancient water cooler in the corner that bubbled quietly on occasion, but otherwise the office was quiet save for the hum of the pair of computers in the corner and the quiet murmuring of someone on the phone in one of the back offices. For a moment, Louis was at a loss for what to do because there was no one sitting at the front desk. There weren’t even any students to chat with while he was waiting for a guidance office counsellor to appear, so all he could do was stand awkwardly next to the front desk, reading some of the college registration advertisements posted on the walls.  
  
The phone conversation Louis could overhear from one of the offices ended and a moment later Marcel Styles’ door creaked open and he stepped out. He smiled a dimply grin when he spotted Louis and scuttled into place behind the front desk. He took a seat in the chair there and wiggled the mouse to wake up the computer. Marcel was dressed in a striped button-down, buttoned meticulously all the way to the top, a drab gray-blue sweater vest and a bowtie patterned with yellow flowers. Louis was feeling suffocated just looking at him, but at the same time felt severely underdressed in the jeans and baggy crew neck sweater that he’d elected to wear that morning. In his defense, he spent most of his day teaching students dance steps and trying to coach them on enacting dramatic tableaus. Dress shirts and sweater vests were not exactly well suited to that.   
  
“Good afternoon, Mr. Tomlinson,” he said cheerfully. His eyes flicked from the computer screen where he was logging in back up to Louis. “What can I help you with today?”  
  
“Call me Louis,” Louis told him, smiling back. He flapped his hand gently, making the pink volunteer slips rustle. “I’ve just got some volunteer hours for some students who helped with the GSA drag show last week.”  
  
“And how did that go, Louis?” Marcel asked, taking the sheets from Louis and beginning to leaf through them one by one to enter the information into his computer. He stamped the ones that he had completed as he went, starting a finished pile that grew steadily. Louis had well and truly brought him a stack of forms; he’d needed nearly forty volunteers for the show.  
  
“It went well!” Louis replied, grinning in spite of himself. His passion at school aside from the various projects that he helped the drama department put on was the various things he supervised for the GSA. The kids in the club were so passionate and wonderful and he couldn’t help but have a soft spot for them. The drag show hadn’t been huge, but they had had a few students volunteer to perform and had even enlisted to help of two professional drag queens. They’d sold buttons and baked goods and had raised a couple hundred dollars in donated silent auction items. “I think the students really enjoyed the performance aspect of it, and they had a lot of fun making the costumes and doing each other’s make-up. I’m sure lots of them would do it again, and I’m sure if we do it again, it’ll be even more successful. Drag is pretty trendy right now.”  
  
“It was a good idea for a fundraiser,” Marcel agreed. “Make sure you run it again on a night when I’m not busy, and I’ll make sure I come.”  
  
“Right, I’ll just contact you immediately when I’m working on scheduling it,” Louis said with a chuckle. Marcel honked out a laugh, as if scheduling jokes were truly hilarious, and fanned at himself as he recovered from his bout of laughter.  
  
“It won’t be difficult to find a time that I’m free,” Marcel practically giggled. “Aside from watching movies with my cats, I don’t have plans ever.”  
  
Marcel followed that with a smile and a laugh and Louis took that as his cue to laugh along. Without much more conversation, Marcel reached the bottom of his pile of pink volunteer forms. He stamped the final form and straightened up the pile before he passed it back over the desk to Louis.  
  
“Thanks Marcel,” Louis said as he gathered up his papers and fidgeted with them. He felt like he could probably stand here and chat with Marcel a bit longer - he was on his prep period, and he wasn’t exactly rushing to get back to his classroom to do actual work. He just wasn’t sure what he should bring up to talk to Marcel about. Now that he thought about it, he barely knew Marcel. What did he like? What were his hobbies, aside from watching movies with his cat? If he never had plans, maybe Louis could make some for him...

  
“Uh, Marcel…” Louis said, suddenly enough that Marcel’s head snapped up and his expression was concerned. “This is probably weird, but do you maybe want to go to a wedding with me?”  
  
Marcel blinked up at him, green eyes magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. “Um… beg your pardon?”  
  
“Nevermind,” Louis blurted. “It’s weird. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll leave you alone now.”  
  
Louis made an attempt at a quick escape but he ended up bumping into a table on his way out the door and losing his grip on the completed volunteer forms. The whole stack went flying, scattering pink slips of paper across the floor of the guidance office. Louis was frozen in place for a moment, but then Marcel hurried around from behind his desk and got to his knees to gather up the fallen slips of paper. Louis immediately fell to his knees too, trying not to crumple up any of the papers as he tried to sweep them up in his hands. (Not that any of his students would be surprised to receive papers back from him like that. He wasn’t known for turning graded assignments back without the odd crinkle or tea stain on them.)  
  
They worked together to gather up the slips, and when they’d gotten them all, Marcel straightened up his pile and handed it back to Louis. Louis clutched their combined piles to his chest and got clumsily to his feet. He nearly lost his balance and flopped back down on his bum, and Marcel hurried over to him and steadied him by a firm grip on Louis’ bicep.  
  
Thoroughly embarrassed and feeling about ready to crawl under his desk in his room and hide, Louis blurted out a rushed apology and turned on his heel. He heard Marcel call out to him as he left but he ignored him and power walked back to his classroom and made a cup of tea to try and make himself feel better.  
  
Once he had his cup of tea made, Louis sat down at his desk to get some marking done, which quickly devolved into him watching vine compilations on his phone. He was just mumbling ‘move, I’m gay’ along with the vine on his phone when his work laptop, which was open on his desk in front of him, pinged with an e-mail notification. He told himself that he would check it once the video he was watching was over, but he was halfway through the next video YouTube suggested before he remembered the e-email. He paused the video and set his phone down to pay attention to his computer and perhaps do his actual job.  
  
He found two e-mails from different teachers about the drag show that he had ignored for days, and at the top of the list was an e-mail from Styles, Marcel which had arrived twenty-two minutes earlier. He hesitated before he clicked it, deciding to just ignore it if it was embarrassing. He opened it and bit his lip as he read the short line of text.  
  
 _Louis,_ _  
_ _I would have said yes if you hadn’t rushed out of my office. I love weddings._ _  
_ _Marcel_ _  
_  
Louis read the e-mail over a couple of times and paused. It would be a little bit more work, but Marcel would probably do. The problem was the extra stuff that Marcel would have to commit to in the pretend boyfriend department. Plus he might not be okay with actively lying to Louis’ sister, but these were all things that he needed to talk to Marcel about.  
  
Louis closed his laptop and headed back to guidance, hoping that Marcel wasn’t busy with a student when he arrived. He only had twenty minutes left of his prep period before he had another class for the last period of the day, but if Marcel wasn’t busy, Louis could at least explain his situation and let him think on it for as long as he needed.  
  
Marcel was back at the desk in the back of the office where he’d put the information from Louis’ student volunteers in to the computer, and he appeared to be alone so Louis drifted sheepishly into the office. Marcel didn’t notice him as first, but when Louis took a seat across from him at the desk, he looked up, startled.  
  
“Oh, Louis,” he gasped, clearly not expecting Louis’ return. He could probably have e-mailed him back to ask if he was free to talk, but that ship had already sailed and it wasn’t really Louis’ style to e-mail back and forth when he could just walk to the office and talk to him in person. “You came back. Did you get my e-mail?”  
  
“Yeah,” Louis said, fidgeting with the inseam of his jeans but keeping eye contact with Marcel determinedly. “It’s great that you love weddings and you’ll go with me, but the situation is a little bit more complicated than that.”  
  
Marcel busied himself with something on the computer, but Louis swore he could see his cheeks flush. This was such an awkward position that Louis had put him in. Hopefully he would be okay with it, and Louis didn’t just put him through this for nothing.  
  
Louis took a deep breath. “So. The wedding that I’m going to is my sister’s wedding.”  
  
“Congratulations to her,” Marcel said, his eyes darting away from his screen to Louis’ for a moment before he went back to work.  
  
Louis smiled. “Thanks, I’ll tell her. But she and I are very close, and so I’m in her wedding.” Marcel smiled a little in a way that made one of his dimples appear, apparently pleased at the knowledge that Louis was close with his sister. “She told me I have to find a date for the wedding and that it had to be a guy I like instead of one of my friends.” Marcel went red again, and one of his eyes twitched a little. If nothing else, he was going on quite the face journey. “I’ve been single forever, and my family really gets on my case about it. So my sister was being a pest about the wedding and I sort of… lied and told her that I have a boyfriend. To get her off my case.”  
  
Marcel nodded when Louis paused, and it made Louis hope that Marcel would maybe be alright with lying to Lottie some more. “Alright,” he said, brows furrowing. “So you need me to pretend to be your boyfriend.”  
  
Louis bit his lip. “Yes?”  
  
“And we’d be lying to your sister. Your entire family, actually,” he amended, and Louis felt like he was deflating. The hope that was swelling inside him drained out quickly and he slumped down in the chair.  
  
“Well, uh – yes,” he admitted. “But I reckon you won’t have to deal with the consequences of that. I’d just tell them we broke up after the wedding.”  
  
Louis didn’t know Marcel well enough to read him, but he frowned, which was universally a bad sign. He rushed to keep talking, hoping to sweeten the deal and give Marcel a reason to help Louis aside from apparently loving weddings.  
  
“I have to wear a suit that my sister picks out, but you can wear whatever you want. We can go suit shopping together, and I’ll buy the suit for you if you want,” Louis told him. “Plus the wedding’ll be catered with a DJ and stuff. It’s bound to be a pretty fun night, and I’ll bring you to the rehearsal dinner too, so. Two free meals and an open bar.”  
  
Marcel didn’t look convinced, but Louis couldn’t think of anything else to bribe him with. “I’d be in your debt for all eternity, but I can see why it’s a lot to do for someone you barely know, especially when you’re not getting much out of it, but-“  
  
“Okay,” Marcel said. “I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend.”  
  
Louis filtered, and he felt his heart had dropped out of his ass. “Shit, really?”  
  
Marcel smiled, presumably at Louis’ lack of decorum, and nodded. “Yes. But I’m buying my own suit. I expect the boyfriend experience in every other respect.”  
  
“I could kiss you, Styles!” Louis exclaimed, and Marcel blushed so adorably that Louis wanted to reach across the desk between then to feel how hot his rosy cheeks were. “I’ll be the best fake boyfriend anyone’s ever had!” Louis promised. “You won’t regret this!”  
  
As if on cue, the bell to signal the end of Louis’ prep period rang and Louis had to get back to his room for his next class. “Fuck, I’ve got to go. I’ll e-mail you!” he called on his way out of the guidance office. “Thanks again!” he said, and the last thing he saw before he headed back out to his portable was Marcel’s dimply grin beaming at him from across the office.  
  
-  
  
That evening saw Louis rescheduling his plans for pints and pool with the lads after work as he brought Marcel over to his place for dinner. He’d reasoned that he needed to take a coupley picture for his social media because Lottie knew he lived in instagram and facebook. Marcel had suggested they snap the photo in Louis’ classroom after work, but Louis had insisted on buying him dinner to further iron out the details of their plan. Marcel took public transit to work each day, so Louis gave him a ride back to his place and they stopped to grab some Chinese takeaway on the way.  
  
“Is Lottie your only sister?” Marcel asked after Louis showed him some photos of himself and Lottie from his social media. “She’s gorgeous.”  
  
“Hey, you’re _my_ fake boyfriend. No checking out my sister,” he jabbed his finger into Marcel’s side, making him giggle loudly and arch away. It was probably flirtier than he should have been with Marcel, but he couldn’t help it. Marcel was impossibly endearing with his awkwardness, lanky limbs, and sweet dimply smile. Louis drew back into his own space and Marcel recovered, cheeks pink and hair very slightly askew when he straightened back up. “But no,” he replied, address Marcel’s question. “I have six sisters and a brother.”  
  
“Oh, wow,” Marcel gasped. “Give my respect to your mother. She must be an incredible woman.”  
  
“She is,” Louis said. Sucking up to Louis’ mum was a surefire way to win Louis’ favour, so whether Marcel knew it or not, he was scoring points. “You can tell her yourself when you meet her.”  
  
Louis had been hemming and hawing over which takeout item he wanted to dig into first ever since they’d settled down at Louis’ living room coffee table with the boxes spread out before them. He finally decided on a spicy chicken dish, attacking it with his chopsticks. Marcel was less enthusiastic than Louis was, but he still hummed happily as he shoved noodles into his wide mouth.  
  
“Something tells me that mums love you,” Louis commented, thinking of past parent-teacher nights where he’d seen Marcel chatting with parents. He was always a little awkward, but he was also passionate about his job which was something parents loved in a guidance counselor.  
  
“Oh yes,” Marcel agreed, dabbing at his lips with a napkin before he continued to speak. “Can’t say I’ve ever met a boyfriend’s parents, though.”  
  
“No?” Louis asked, surprised. Louis could imagine Marcel in an ill-fitting suit, shitting himself under the scrutiny of his boyfriend’s dad before senior prom. He could imagine the suit would look like ugly couch upholstery. “Too much of a player for boyfriends and their mums?”  
  
“Erm – no, not really,” Marcel replied, fidgeting with his chopsticks in the box of lo mien. “Haven’t really dated anyone since uni. I’m not really an, um, one night stand kind of fellow.”  
  
“Me either,” Louis said after he’d swallowed his mouthful of chicken. “Spent most of uni doing that and I suppose it was fine then, but now I like to think I’ve grown up a bit and want something more serious.”  
  
“Yet here you are, fake dating a coworker,” Marcel said with a giggle.  
  
“Oi!” Louis squawked. “Here I am getting roasted by one too!”  
  
-  
  
After dinner, they took a photo on Louis’ couch. Louis put his arm around Marcel and Marcel leaned in to rest his temple against Louis’, a bowl of popcorn in his lap. It had taken Louis forever to convince Marcel that they needed to look more intimate than just sitting shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, but it has turned out quite cute, if Louis said so himself. He posted it to his instagram and cross-posted from there to facebook with the caption movie night with the boy followed by the popcorn emoji. He tagged Marcel, who he had followed earlier in the day while they corresponded over e-mail during Louis’ last class, and not thirty seconds after he posted it, Lottie was calling him.  
  
“Evening, Lots,” he greeted her. “Lovely to hear from you, sister mine, but I’ve got company over so I can’t really talk-“  
  
“Lou, you just followed each other today. You’ve got to do better than that,” Lottie snapped, and Louis only panicked for a second before he remembered the plan that he and Marcel had discussed earlier.  
  
“Well I told you it’s really new,” Louis argued. “And maybe I didn’t want my whole family to know I’m shagging someone. Experience has shown them to be a bunch of bloody gossips.”  
  
Marcel flushed at the mention of shagging but Lottie started talking and Louis had to pay attention to her again. He could practically hear her furrowed brows over the phone.  
  
“Point. But for the record, I’m still suspicious,” she told him, promptly hanging up.  
  
“Thanks Lottie, I love you too,” Louis grumbled, texting her that before he tossed his phone aside. Then he turned to Marcel. “So do you have a strict bedtime, or shall we actually watch a movie together?”  
  
Marcel glanced at his watch. It was just gone six. “I don’t know…” he murmured, a cute little crinkle appearing between his eyebrows. He couldn’t be fucking serious.  
  
“One movie, and the rest of the night is yours,” Louis proposed. “I’ll put on the best movie, and you’ll regret not staying with me to watch it.”  
  
Marcel still looked reluctant and so Louis decided to just act and hope that Marcel got drawn in. He turned his TV on, quickly navigated to Netflix, and put on Hidden Figures, which was a movie that he hoped Marcel would be interested in. He didn’t strike Louis as someone who would like the action movies and thrillers that were Louis’ usual go-to fare.  
  
Louis pat the space on the couch next to him and gave Marcel his best puppy dog eyes, and Marcel sighed but scooted a little closer to Louis until their thighs were a hairs breadth apart. He only fidgeted for a moment before he quickly got drawn in by the plot of the film and settled in. Louis watched him out of the corner of his eye and smirked as subtly as possible at his good choice.  
  
-  
  
The weeks that followed Louis and Marcel ‘getting together’ were fairly standard for Louis, but his weekends were jam-packed with appointments for various things pertaining to Lottie’s wedding. One weekend he was helping Lottie find a venue and a flourist and a dress, none of which were successful. The next weekend they did all those things again plus looked at table setting options which seemed like the most mundane, stupid part of the whole ordeal, but Louis did it because he was nothing if not a loving, supportive big brother. (He only complained every second he was trailing along behind Lottie through bridal salons and banquet halls. At least he went with her. Worse brothers wouldn’t even do that!)  
  
The highlight of the time he spent helping Lottie plan her wedding was his interactions with Marcel. It had started with him sitting on a couch in a bridal salon while Lottie was led into the thick of the dress selection by an attendant. They had to have been gathering dresses for her to try on for half an hour at least and Louis was getting antsy, so he got up to go have a smoke. Once he finished and had tossed the butt, he took a quick selfie with the salon front sign in the background and sent it to Marcel before he could consider if Marcel would even want a selfie of him or not. _so bored :(_ , he captioned it. _pls text me if ur free! i’m dying here_  
  
Almost immediately, Marcel was typing, and a moment later his message came through. _Why are you bored?_ he asked. _Bridal stores are great. Everything is so pretty._  
  
Louis pouted, almost forgetting that Marcel wasn’t there and couldn’t see him. _lottie’s been looking for dresses for half an hour and i got too antsy to sit down and wait any longer. talk to me so I don’t start causing trouble pls. the pretty bridal salon depends on it_ _  
_  
_Well if it saves the pretty bridal salon_ , Marcel sent him back. He typed for a longer period this time, during which Louis went back inside the store, hands numb from texting in the cold. By the time he’d gotten back to the lobby and hung his coat back up in the closet next to the front desk where a receptionist eyed him warily, Marcel had sent him a long list of things to find in the salon and send him pictures of. Louis scanned the list, finding plenty of words that he didn’t know the meaning of, and so he decided to start with them first.  
  
An hour later, Lottie called him asking him where the hell he’d gotten off to, and Louis paused in his quest to find the most expensive veil in the store and scurried back down the escalator to the couch where he was supposed to be waiting. He flung himself onto it and grinned winningly up at Lottie, who scowled down at him from atop the raised platform where she stood, arms crossed, swathed in floor-length white lace.  
  
“That’s very pretty,” he commented, breathless from jogging down from the veil section. He tossed his head to get his fringe out of his face. “But I don’t know if it’s _you_ , you know? I give it a seven.”  
  
Lottie flipped him off, then gathered the skirt of her dress up and stomped off, her worried-looking attendant scuttling along behind her.  
  
Louis waited until they’d turned a corner before he whipped his phone out. He laid down on his back and held his phone above him, shaking his hair out so that it fanned out on the pristine white fabric beneath him. He pulled his t-shirt away from his chest and puffed out a long breath so he wouldn’t look so sweaty and winded, then snapped a picture of himself and sent it to Marcel. _busted! now I have to actually do what i came here for i guess_ _  
_  
He was just debating popping over to the accessories section (thankfully on the same floor as he was on) and finding a tiara with pink jewels to show Marcel when Lottie came out in the second dress. It was worse than the first one, off-white with a single ruffled strap that sort of made Lottie look like a cockatiel. Lottie seemed happier that Louis was taking his job as dress consultant more seriously, but she still stomped off when Louis showed her his downward-facing thumb and blew a loud raspberry.  
  
While Lottie changed into the next dress, Louis went to look at tiaras, finding a rose gold one that mimicked latticework in how it was styled, and another one that was silver with pale pink stones embedded in it. Marcel sent him a heart eye emoji after the first one, and a shocked face emoji at the second one. _It’s beautiful!_ he commented, and Louis couldn’t help but feel endeared by the awkward, uptight man he was pretending to date who loved pretty things.  
  
Louis managed to find the ugliest dress on the floor before Lottie came back out. He sent Marcel a picture of the monstrosity, covered in bows and flowers and rhinestones and just hideous. Then he spied the hefty price tag for the cringe-worthy garment and sent Marcel a picture of that, captioned _holy shit_.  
  
He just managed to get back over to the couch in time to see Lottie’s third dress. It was much better, though it wasn’t quite perfect. It was pure snow white and fit her beautifully, with delicate sheer lace sleeves that complemented her tan skin beautifully. It just needed some embellishment and it would be perfect, and Louis felt himself almost tearing up.  
  
“It’s beautiful, Lots,” he said, somewhat awestruck. “ _You’re_ beautiful.”  
  
“Lou,” she laughed, shy suddenly. “Do you think it’s the one?”  
  
“Might be,” Louis said, considering. “But I think you should try on other ones, and if none of them compare, you can come back to this one.”  
  
Lottie agreed, and went off to try on her next pick. Louis shook himself out of the emotions he was feeling at seeing his sister in a wedding dress, of it all being so much more real, and glanced at his phone where he found a message from Marcel.  
  
_When we get pretend married, I want to wear that dress and the rose gold tiara_ , he declared, and Louis snorted. _You’d better start saving because I expect nothing less than the best._  
  
Louis bit his lip over his grin and sent Marcel a diamond ring emoji.  
  
-  
  
“You’re on your phone a lot lately,” Lottie commented as they waited for the consultant at the bakery to bring them the next cake sample.  
  
“Got a buzzing social life,” Louis said, putting his phone face down on the table in some gesture to prove that he could go without looking at it every six seconds. He’d just sent a picture of the cake with a caption about how he could probably eat a whole wedding cake if he had a free afternoon but then he wouldn’t fit into his fancy wedding trousers. He could wait until they were done sampling cakes before looking at Marcel’s response. Or until they finished the next sample. Maybe. “Shockingly, I like talking to my boyfriend.”  
  
“Oh, that’s who you’re always talking to?” Lottie asked, suddenly very much more interested in Louis’ phone. Her manicured fingers just barely brushed the back panel of it before he snatched it up and shoved it into his pocket. Lottie pouted. “I just wanted to say hi to him. When am I going to meet him? Why are you keeping my future brother-in-law from me?!” she demanded, somewhat hysterical in a way that Louis knew he also got when he was being particularly dramatic.  
  
Louis scowled at her and she mirrored the expression. Despite himself, Louis thought about it. He thought about how he needed to get in to the tailor’s to get fitted for his suit, already picked out by Lottie to match her bridesmaids. Marcel needed to find a suit and get fitted for it too, so maybe the could set something up in the next couple weeks. There were still a little over three months left before the wedding, so if they went soon they could get in for another fitting and get any adjustments done before the day of reckoning.  
  
Louis caved as soon as Lottie was distracted by the baker bringing out the next sample, pulling his phone out and asking Marcel when he was free in the next two weekends.  
  
 _You know I’m always free, Louis_ , Marcel replied, so Louis sighed and found out when Lottie was free and if she wanted to have lunch with him and Marcel after they went suit shopping. She cheered and squeezed at Louis’ hands energetically, babbling about them having to show her pictures of themselves in the suits they’d bought afterwards.  
  
-  
  
Louis had arranged to pick Marcel up from his place at ten the morning of their suit fitting appointment, and they were due at the salon at ten thirty. It took Louis less time than he expected to reach Marcel’s building, so he tailgated in after another tenant and made his way up to Marcel’s flat about ten minutes earlier than they’d planned. He assumed that Marcel would be okay with that, but when he knocked on Marcel’s door only to have it opened by a harried-looking Marcel, still in sweats like he’d just rolled out of bed, it turned out that he had assumed wrong.  
  
“You’re early,” Marcel commented, adjusting his glasses. Then he sighed and stepped back, gesturing for Louis to step inside. “Come in. I’m just running a little behind schedule and I’m worried we’ll be late.”  
  
Louis closed Marcel’s door after himself, glancing around himself to take in the space. It was exactly how he’d expected Marcel’s flat to look, from the knitted afghan thrown over the back of the sofa to the caramel coloured cat sprawled on the cat tree in the corner and peering at him disinterestedly. “We’ve still got forty five minutes to get to a place that’s a ten minute drive. If we hit all reds,” Louis commented, taking in the ironing board that probably permanently stood between Marcel’s sofa and the wall of his flat, and Louis heard the bubbling of the dehumidifier that sat tucked into a corner next to Marcel’s television shelf.  
  
“I’m just running behind,” Marcel said, and Louis caught the edge to his voice that Louis being here in his space when he wasn’t completely put-together was pushing him outside his comfort zone.  
  
“Mate, you’re just going to be taking your clothes off,” Louis called when Marcel hurried off into another room and slammed the door behind him. “You could just put on jeans and a t-shirt,” he added. He couldn’t help but linger on the image burned into his mind of Marcel in soft-looking sweats and a worn t-shirt, bare toes curling against the hardwood flooring. While Marcel was hurrying about, Louis could have sworn he caught a glimpse of dark ink marking Marcel’s forearms and that was beyond hot. He looked so different from his usual tight-laced, somewhat-stuffy self that Louis always interacted with at work. He’d learned that Marcel was secretly funny in a corny way and that he loved sappy romcoms and yoga, but he never could have predicted the secret sexiness that he carried when he was soft and casual in comfortable clothes.  
  
While Louis was thinking, Marcel emerged from what was probably his bedroom, mostly dressed. He was hurriedly jamming his hands into his unbuttoned trousers to tuck his shirt into them, then tried to finish buttoning his shirt one-handed while he finished smoothing out the tuck of his shirt. He disappeared into the bathroom then, and Louis felt haunted by the need to tousle the bouncy chocolate curls that brushed Marcel’s forehead and his ears and the back of his neck. He also wanted to tangled them around his fingers and hear what kind of sound Marcel made when he yanked, but he tried to shake those thoughts from his head. Marcel was doing him a favour; he didn’t like Louis like that, even if Louis was having a very inappropriate sexual epiphany the longer he thought about Marcel in his casual home clothes.  
  
Twenty minutes before they were scheduled at the tailor’s, Marcel came out of the bathroom with his hair styled into a stiff quiff and his usual sweater vest and bowtie. Louis tried not to be too disappointed, though it was hard not to imagine how his hair would bounce as he hurried to gather up his wallet and his keys and put on his jacket. Louis wanted to rewind life, to see Marcel take his clothes back off so Louis could trace Marcel’s tattoos with first his eyes and then his fingertips.

 

“Okay, I’m ready,” Marcel said finally, but when Louis tried to engage with him and make him smile, Marcel was clearly still very ruffled.

 

They made their way to where Louis had parked his car across the street from Marcel’s building. The air between them was cold and stiff up until they climbed into the car and Louis was turning around to head back out onto the street.

 

“You look good in your pyjamas,” Louis commented, trying to sound nonchalant. He sincerely hoped that bringing attention to him like this wouldn’t spook Marcel, but he needed to do or say  _ something _ or this whole day was going to be stressful and tense and he didn’t want that. He  _ liked _ Marcel, probably even more than he’d thought at first. “All relaxed and soft. Wouldn’t mind seeing you like that more often.”

 

Marcel went red and turned his head to stare out the window. Louis snuck glances at him as he drove them to the menswear shop. He would think he’d made the situation worse, but he could tell by roundness of his cheek from the side that he was smiling at least a little bit.

 

They arrived at the menswear shop a few minutes before their appointment. The consultant handed Louis a hefty garment bag which contained the suit that Lottie and Tommy already picked out for the men in their party.

 

“Try that on for the fit,” the consultant, Kevin, told Louis, sending him off to the change room. Louis put the sample size on and checked himself out in the mirror, making mental notes on things to ask the consultant about. Lottie had selected a blue floral pocket square which made Louis consider trying to put Marcel into a floral shirt or tie. He tucked it into his pocket, admiring himself for another moment before he went back out onto the shop floor.

 

He found Marcel sitting stiffly on the leather couch while the consultant bustled past him, dropping different pieces on the cushions next to him. Marcel looked a little scared but as soon as he caught sight of Louis, his face softened and the lines on his face smoothed out.

 

“What are those for?” Louis asked Marcel, pointing to the pile of garments sitting next to him.

 

“Think they’re for me,” Marcel croaked, looking frightened. “There’s a red suit in there somewhere.”

 

Louis sat down on the other side of the pile and looked through the pieces, oohing and aahing at some of the particularly bold patterns he found. He split the pile into two, including a shortlist of pieces that he liked. Kevin came back over with another armload of suit pieces, and Louis leapt up and stopped him before he reached the couch.

 

Kevin eyed him critically. “Lift your arms,” he said, and Louis did. Louis shared his notes with Kevin, who agreed on most things, and jotted them down so that he could take it ot the tailor and make the necessary adjustments. The next time they came in, the suit would fit Louis like a glove and he would be all set for the wedding. Once Kevin had worked through the adjustments he needed to make to the suit, Louis pulled him off further from the couch where Marcel was sitting (read: eavesdropping) to have a private chat with him.

 

“So,” he began, tugging the pocket square out of his breast pocket and handing it to Kevin. “My sister picked this pocket square for all the men in the wedding party, and the pattern is amazing.”

 

“It’s just gorgeous,” Kevin agreed, inspecting the square.

 

“I think you should try and find some pieces that are in this pattern,” Louis told him. “I think he’s a little afraid of patterns and loud colours, but I really want to see him in this pattern. I think it’ll look great on him.”

 

Kevin nodded, earnest now that he’d been assigned a task. He marched over to the couch and dumped his armload of items on the couch next to Marcel, effectively ruining Louis’ sorting that he’d done. Louis didn’t care much though, heart now set on getting Marcel into a floral suit.

 

“You look great,” Marcel commented timidly when Louis went back to him and took a seat on the armchair next to the couch. It was now covered in suits and there wasn’t room for him to sit next to Marcel anymore.

 

Louis tugged at his lapels, looking down at himself and pursing his lips. “The jacket and pants and too long and it’s a little too loose in the bum area, but there’s still time for that to get fixed.”

 

“It’s going to get tighter?” Marcel squeaked.

 

“Around my bum, yes,” Louis replied, nodding curtly. He observed Marcel’s eyes bugging out of his head just slightly, which was an interesting reaction.

 

Marcel had no further comments on that. He was probably thinking about the horrors that the consultant was going to put him through in the form of tight, flamboyant suits. Louis nipped off to the change room to change back into his own clothes, and then he sat back down and engaged Marcel in small talk while they waited for Kevin to return.

 

When he did return, it was in a flurry of floral fabric in different shades of blue and Marcel balked at the pile when he saw it. Louis gave Kevin a nod, and the other man gathered up the other garments he’d picked out initially and went to go put them away. With the refined pile of patterned suit pieces on the couch, Louis had space to sit down on the other side of it. He began to pick through the items, humming in interest as he inspected certain pieces.

 

Eventually, Kevin came back and Louis got to his feet, picking up a pair of trousers, a blazer, and a dress shirt. “He’s going to try this on,” Louis told Kevin, and Marcel looked nothing short of harried as he got to his feet, knees trembling. Louis took Marcel’s hand with his free one, pausing to look back at Marcel. He wanted to push Marcel, but he was careful not to go too far. Marcel had panic in his eyes, but when Louis met his eyes and offered him a little nod, and he nodded back. Louis squeezed his hand, carrying the suit and leading him back to the fitting room.

 

There wasn’t really a space for Louis to wait in comfort, so he just bustled in to the fitting room after Marcel. It was spacious, and there was a chair in it, so Louis took a seat there and looked expectantly at Marcel.

 

“You’ll need to start by taking your clothes off,” Louis prompted.

 

“...you’re going to just sit there?” Marcel squeaked. “While I’m...you know.” He shifted to whispering, eyes wide. “ _ Naked _ ?”

 

“You might need help,” Louis said simply. He maybe had ulterior motives. They maybe involved seeing Marcel’s bare skin again and getting a better look at the tattoos Louis was certain he had.

 

“I can get dressed by myself,” Marcel protested.

 

“Alright, fine,” Louis huffed. “I’ll just sit here on my phone, and you can let me know if you need my help.”

 

Marcel still eyed him warily, and as a gesture of goodwill, Louis got out his phone and made himself busy playing Candy Crush. He heard fabric rustling as Marcel took off his clothes and he kept making moves on the game as he snuck a peek at the half-naked man across the room.

 

Marcel had a wealth of ink marking his skin indeed. From where he sat, Louis couldn’t make out specific images, but he saw indistinct swirls of black and grey scattered on his shoulders and arms. He had a few larger pieces on his torso and abdomen, including two birds, a large moth spanning the entire width of his surprisingly-toned stomach, and a mouthwatering pair of ferns that framed his pelvis.

 

Louis had to snap his eyes back down to his phone screen, lest he get caught staring (and probably drooling).

 

When Marcel was finished getting dress in the suit pieces Louis had picked out, he stepped up close to Louis and spread his arms out. “Well?” he asked, voice timid and shaking a little with nerves. “How do I look?”

 

The first suit Louis picked out was a floral suit with powder blue tones and a black dress shirt underneath. Louis had to swallow around the lump in his throat before he could speak, stunned by how handsome Marcel looked in something that fit him properly and flattered his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs.

 

“Wow,” Louis breathed, coughing a little to clear his throat.

 

“I look a bit silly, don’t I?” Marcel asked, turning to the full-length mirror that spanned one wall of the room and frowning. He adjusted his lapels. “Looks like I’m a couch someone dragged to the kerb.”

 

“Fuck that,” Louis scoffed immediately. “You look great. You should definitely try on more patterns.”

 

Marcel went pink and got all stuttery, but he let Louis pick more patterned pieces for him to try on. They tried on suits for the next half an hour or so, mainly staying holed up in the changeroom except for when they had to venture out into the salon to find Kevin so he could get them a different size or a different garment.

 

Eventually Louis got Marcel into a clingier pair of pants and a shirt and Louis was practically drooling. The put him in a jacket that fit him and Louis couldn’t take his eyes off how it came in around his waist. It made his waist look tiny and his shoulders look so broad and strong, and Louis wanted to put his hands there, see how tiny Marcel’s waist really was with Louis’ hands on him.

 

Marcel wasn’t any different in a suit, Louis reflected. He was the same guy he was before, and Louis realized then that he had probably been attracted to Marcel for some time. Seeing him in his home in his casual clothing had just helped him see that, and after that couldn’t stop looking at Marcel and seeing how handsome he was.

 

The longer he looked at himself in the suit that fit him perfectly, the more his body language changed. He seemed more confident and more conscious of his own handsomeness in this incredibly flattering garment.

 

“I think this is the one,” Louis said, because staring at Marcel in slack-jawed silence was going to get him caught and called out if he did it for much longer.

 

“Really?” Marcel asked quietly. He turned in the mirror, biting his lip nervously as he looked at the outline of his bum through the trousers. He stroked his hands over the bottom of the back from his pinched-in waist down to his hips. “It makes me look quite curvy.”

 

“It fits you perfectly,” Louis told him. “It just accentuates what’s already there.”

 

“It looks a bit girly, though,” Marcel commented, clearly unsure.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Louis told him, suddenly defensive. “That’s just your body, love.”

 

Marcel sighed, reaching his hands up and smoothing down his lapels. “And the pattern? Looks like the upholstery on the sofa nan keeps in the basement under a plastic cover.”

 

“Bullshit,” Louis said. “You look so good. Floral patterns look great on you, and your suit matches my pocket square. This is definitely the one. The tailor will barely have to make any changes because the sample already fits you so well.”

 

“You think so?” Marcel asked, casting a quick but nervous look at Louis and then looking back at himself in the mirror. He did a little sway, tilting his upper body and keeping his legs stationary in the cutest move that Louis had seen a person do ever, bar his adorable little siblings. He took one look at Louis in the mirror and declared, “I’m gonna get it.” and maybe that had something to do with something that he saw in Louis’ expression.

 

They returned to the couch where Kevin was hovering and told him they’d found the suit, for which he cheered. He tittered around pinning and unpinning different parts of the suit until it fit Marcel even more snugly, and made some notes and sent them off to go get changed into their regular clothes.

 

“I think you made a good choice,” Louis said nonchalantly as they were getting changed. He tried not to stare at the muscles and ink that had been hidden under his ill-fitting corduroy and sweater vests for so long. “We’re going to look great at the wedding. Best dressed couple award is in the bag.”

 

Marcel giggled, putting his sweater vest back on and getting it caught over his head in his glasses. Louis paused doing up his jeans and went to help Marcel, gently tugging the collar wider so that it didn’t catch on his frames. His head popped out and he sighed in relief, cheeks colouring in embarrassment and eyes cast down from Louis’ face.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, fixing his glasses and straightening his tie.

 

-

 

“Louis, I’m confused,” Liam said quite suddenly when they’d been eating lunch together in the staff room. Louis didn’t know why Liam suddenly had something to say to him, given that they’d been on lunch for fifteen minutes already, but Louis guessed he could go off if he wanted to.

 

“About what, Lime?” Louis asked, looking up at Liam over the rim of his yogurt cup as he scraped at the bottom of it to get the last of it out.

 

“Well, I know that you’re going to your sister’s wedding with Marcel Styles from guidance,” Liam started. Zayn looked up from his phone for a second in a miraculous display of interest, and Louis got the feeling that they had probably both been wondering about whatever Liam claimed to be confused about. Niall set down the slice of pizza he’d been halfway through eating, and that was the final sign that they had definitely all been talking about him.

 

“Yes,” Louis prompted, curious about where this was going. They had all backed out on him so he figured they didn’t really care what he ended up doing instead. As far as he knew, none of them had a problem with Marcel, so he was interested to find out what Liam’s concerns were.

 

“And I know you’re pretending he’s your boyfriend and all that, but I can’t help but feel like,” Liam paused, like he trying to think of the right way to express his thoughts. “You’re committing a little too much to your role.”

 

“So we’re convincing, then,” Louis said. “That’s good.”

 

“We’re pretty sure it’s more than that though,” Niall comments. “It looks like you actually like him and you’re actually his boyfriend.”

 

“Well I’m not,” Louis protested after a moment. The only change that the boys could have observed at work was how Louis sometimes visited Marcel at the guidance office and how they had been hanging out and texting constantly. Louis wondered if the boys were maybe jealous that Louis had another friend. Technically speaking, he’d known Zayn the longest, and then Niall, and Liam was the newest member of their little crew, so perhaps Liam wasn’t used to there being anyone else yet. “Is this about me bailing on playing Mario Kart and Fifa with you last week? Because I was actually with Lottie that night-”

 

“It’s not about that, though you did kind of fuck us over,” Liam said. “We thought you’d be there.”

 

“We ordered so much curry,” Zayn mumbled, sounding somewhat traumatized.

 

“It was the opposite of a problem,” Niall assured him, waving off his concern.

 

“That’s not important,” Liam told him. “The point is that we think you’re getting in too deep with him. Are you going to be able to go back to normal after the wedding?”

 

Louis didn’t have an honest answer to that. He stared down at his empty yogurt cup and shrugged, feeling like he probably looked like a particularly petulant one of their students. “Why do I have to?”

 

“Because he  _ isn’t _ your boyfriend,” Liam told him, brows furrowed seriously. The other two boys were looking at Louis with similar concern. Louis couldn’t help but feel like this felt a lot like an intervention. “Do you want him to be?”

 

Louis bit his lip. He shrugged again. “What if I do?”

 

“Don’t be a dick, Lou,” Zayn said, voice sharp. Louis must have responded snappily to Liam because Liam looked hurt and Zayn piped up in his defense. Zayn wasn’t one to get involved in their bickering, so Louis knew he’d misstepped. He didn’t have a chance to apologize to Liam immediately, because Zayn was saying to him, “We’re just all worried that you’re gonna get hurt.”

 

“I won’t,” Louis told them fiercely, trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince them.

 

-

 

The rehearsal dinner for Lottie’s wedding took place a week before the event. The actual rehearsal part went well and Louis was in a great mood, sitting with Marcel with free license to touch him. Drunk off his cute fake boyfriend and the bottomless supply of liquor that Lottie and Tommy had provided, Louis was feeling better than he had in months.

 

Touching Marcel was almost as intoxicating as the alcohol. Since the boys had confronted him at school, his attraction to Marcel had only proved to be stubbornly resilient, and with only a week left of the ruse, he was exploiting any possible opportunity to talk to Marcel and hang out with him and touch him.

 

This dinner, he was definitely at his worst. If Louis wasn’t otherwise busy with his hands, he was touching Marcel’s jaw or his arm or stroking back Marcel’s hair which he’d begged and pleaded Marcel to let him style into a looser quiff than he usually wore. While they were eating, Louis’ hand was resting on Marcel’s knee and creeping up his thigh steadily as the night wore on and he consumed more drinks.

 

Louis would worry about being too clingy or making Marcel uncomfortable, but he constantly leaned into the touches and his expression went soft and dreamy. Marcel was too indulgent of him, and it wasn’t making the ‘keep yourself distant enough from Marcel to say goodbye to him after the wedding’ plan any easier.

 

After dinner, Louis’ older, stuffier family members left with kisses to Louis’ cheeks and promises to see him and his adorable date the next weekend. Lottie and Tommy had the venue for the night and a friend who was a DJ, so once dinner was done, they cleared the space and had a mini pre-reception dance, mainly because they could. The drinks were still flowing and music was loud and Louis wanted to  _ move _ .

 

“Oh, Louis, no,” Marcel said when Louis took him by the hand to pull him to the dancefloor. “It’s a school night; we should get going.”

 

“Just one song,” Louis coaxed, pouting up at Marcel. It only took a moment before he gave in, shaking his head but smiling and letting Louis lead them to a spot on the dancefloor. The song that was playing was an upbeat dance song so Louis started moving with it, pressing himself close to Marcel. Marcel audibly squeaked over the pumping music, eyes wide and panicked, and Louis took both his hands and placed them on his own waist.

 

“Relax,” he told Marcel, leaning up on his toes and pressing their chests flush as he spoke into his ear. Marcel was like a Tin Man who’d run out of oil; stiff and tense and jerky when he did move. Louis kept his hands overtop of Marcel’s, shifting his hips to the beat and looking up into Marcel’s face to try and encourage him.

 

Marcel squeezed his hands on Louis’ hips once, grimacing a little in discomfort, before he made an effort. He tried to sway along with Louis’ movements, and even though Louis could feel his muscles were still wound up, he was gradually leaning his own weight onto Louis’ body and they were grinding together just the  _ slightest _ bit.

 

This was by far the sexiest situation they’d found themselves in together, and Louis was living for it. Marcel’s movements were gaining confidence and he was holding Louis by the hips in a more natural way before long, allowing Louis to take his own hands back and put them on Marcel’s back, stroking up from his shoulder blades and sinking one hand into the thick curls on the back of his head.

 

They carried on dancing and Louis was a hair’s breadth away from pulling Marcel down by the hair and snogging him silly when the other man was suddenly unwinding their limbs and pulling away.

 

“C’mon, Marce,” Louis shouted over the music, giggling and sidling up on him again, but Marcel was having none of it.

 

“We danced to one song,” he said, hands placed on Louis’ shoulders and holding him at arm’s length in a way that made him feel like a chastised child. “Now it’s time for us both to go home.”

 

“How about-”

 

“Our  _ separate _ homes,” he added, taking one of Louis’ hands and leading him to the door.

 

Marcel barely gave him time to say goodbye to his remaining relatives before he was loading Louis into a cab and paying the driver, handsome tip included.

 

“Can’t we at least share a cab?” Louis asked as Marcel was paying the driver.

 

“It’s a school night,” Marcel reminded him, closing the car door and waving them off.

 

-

 

The morning after the rehearsal dinner and impromptu party started on a rocky note for Louis. He woke up and he could tell even lying in the dark, fumbling to turn off his blaring alarm, that he was going to have the worst hangover he’d had since he was in college.

 

When he finally sat up and turned on his lamp, he discovered that he was still fully dressed in his crumpled formal wear (not his wedding suit, thank  _ fuck _ , but still a nice pair of trousers, a button-down, and a pair of braces), complete with one shoe still on. His hair was crispy with product and when he showered to try and make himself feel slightly more human, he puked all over himself. Fortunately, he just rinsed himself off and it all went swirling down the drain. Silver linings, and all that.

 

He made it to school ten minutes late and rolled into his first period class looking like death warmed over. He hadn’t stopped in to say good morning to Marcel and he didn’t even get to have coffee with the lads like he usually did in the morning. He set the students to an entire period of practicing for their semester final production so that he wouldn’t have to actually teach, and buried himself in his laptop so he could pretend to do work while he alternated dozing and staring into the void as he tried not to throw up again.

 

Near the end of the period, his phone rang suddenly and shrilly and he groaned as he fumbled to pick it up. As soon as he saw that it was Lottie calling, he looked at the time and dismissed his class early so he could take the call. No one ever said he was the most professional or responsible teacher, alright? He usually gets away with it on the basis of being a drama teacher. Yet another reason why he chose that subject over english.

 

“Yeah, Lots?” Louis asked when he answered the call. He laid his head down on his desk, wishing he’d asked the students to turn the lights out on their way out the door. He closed his eyes instead, huffing out a sigh.

 

“Louis!” Lottie shouted, and Louis cringed and moved his phone away from his ear. He was starting too many conversation with Lottie like this. “Marcel’s cheating on you!”

 

“...what?” Louis asked, furrowing his brow even as his face rested against his desk. “No, he’s not.” In his defense, he wasn’t wrong. One can’t cheat on someone who isn’t actually their boyfriend.

 

“The girls and I went out to a club after the party last night,” Lottie explained. “And while we were at the club we saw Marcel grinding on some guy and making out with him!”

 

“He wouldn’t do that,” Louis mumbled, but he wasn’t so sure himself. He could say it was unexpected, that Marcel wasn’t exactly the go-out-and-grind-on-dudes type of person, but Louis supposed that he could do what he wanted. He just needed to be more careful, because Louis was going to have to do some major covering up to fix this.   
  
Lottie was up in arms about it again, swearing to find Marcel and rip his jugular out for fucking around on Louis. Louis didn’t have time process how he felt about this before he stammered to tell her, “Don’t. I’ll sort it out myself.”   
  
It took another few moments for Louis to settle Lottie down and he had to promise to curb stomp Marcel himself if he didn’t have an adequate explanation (she said she’d dig out her brass knuckles anyways because there was no adequate explanation for cheating on her big brother).   
  
“Yeah, yeah, Lots,” Louis told her, distracted. “You can kill him again after I do. I need to go.”   
  
She finally hung up after vowing to resurrect Marcel to kill him a second time, and Louis was left with his own thoughts. He was upset, but why? Marcel wasn’t actually his boyfriend, and he’d told his friends and himself that he would be able to walk away from this unscathed. Based on the sour feelings of jealousy and betrayal that ached in his chest, he’d failed that promise he’d made to himself.   
  
If Louis had it his way, he would just carry on like Marcel hadn’t done anything and never confront him about it. Unfortunately, with the wedding happening in a week, Louis didn’t have a choice but to talk to Marcel and sort this out and somehow come up with a reason for Marcel to snog another bloke so that Lottie wouldn’t murder him in cold blood. This would be so easy, and Louis would flawlessly keep his feelings from intruding into it. Perfect.   
  
Going into the (thankfully empty) guidance office at lunch and shouting “Marcel what the fuck” was probably not displaying how emotionally detached Louis was from the situation.   
  
“Louis?” Marcel asked, looking alarmed, which Louis supposed was reasonable. In Louis’ defence, Marcel had kissed another dude when he didn’t even kiss Louis, his not-boyfriend. He thought he had a right to be upset. Except that he didn’t. And that made him even more upset. “You shouldn’t talk like that. Especially in school.”   
  
Louis rolled his eyes and stalked over to the door, shutting it before he rounded on Marcel again.   
  
“So congrats on getting laid last night, I guess,” Louis snarled. “Lottie wants to skin you alive because she thinks you’re cheating on me, so that’s great.”   
  
”I…what?” Marcel asked, brows furrowed. The cute confused act wasn’t going to work on Louis – not when he was this hurt.   
  
“Lottie saw you dancing with and snogging some bloke at a club last night,” Louis said, voice louder and edged with hysteria before he remembered they were at school.   
  
“You’re upset?” Marcel asked – and yes, why the fuck wouldn’t he be?!   
  
“Yes! Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?!”   
  
“Are you mad because Lottie saw?” Marcel asked, wringing his hand and averting his gaze. He nibbled his lip and Louis could practically see the gears turning in his curly head as he tried to think of a solution for their problem. Which would be lovely if that was the real source of Louis’ hurt and anger!   
  
“No! Or, well – yes, it’s going to be a real fucking challenge to convince Lottie not to kill you in your sleep,” Louis acknowledged. “But there’s more. Other – feelings? I think? Yes!” Marcel looked absolutely lost, so Louis tried to sum it up as best he could. “You kissed some other guy and maybe slept with him and I’m mad about it!”   
  
“I’m sorry, I-“   
  
“Why? Just – why? Why did you stop dancing with me at the rehearsal only to go to a club and grind up on some other guy?” Louis asked. He knew he was rambling, but he also knew that he wasn’t in the best control of his emotions at that moment. He was nearly crying when he asked, “Fuck, Marcel, just tell me why!”   
  
“It was because of you!” Marcel finally stammered out. Louis was shocked into silence, but anger was bubbling just beneath the surface. How the fuck could Marcel possibly spin this to make it Louis’ fault?! “You were so drunk at the rehearsal and you were all over me. You just wouldn’t stop touching me!”   
  
“So?!” Louis asked. At this point, he definitely wouldn’t be surprised if a crowd had gathered outside the doors to guidance. It was never this loud in here. They probably thought a physical fight was about to go down. “I wanted my family to believe that you’re my fucking boyfriend!”   
  
“Well, I’m not your boyfriend, am I?” Marcel asked, definitely the most aggressive Louis had ever seen him. “I can’t take you home and sleep with you after you’ve spent all night winding me up. So I went out to try and find someone else to take that out on instead.” Marcel growled – another thing Louis had never seen him do – and raked his hands through his hair in frustration, ruining his perfect, stiff quiff. “I didn’t think you’d care because you don’t like me like that anyway!”   
  
“I do like you like that!” Louis exploded, realizing how loud he was being and quietly yelling as he continued to rant, feelings pouring out of him like from a burst dam. “You’re sweet and you’re so, so cute and when I saw you at your flat in your pyjamas with your hair all soft, I just wanted to pull you into my arms and kiss you silly. And don’t even fucking get me started on how sexy you look in a suit!”   
  
Marcel was suitably speechless, slack-jawed across the desk from Louis.   
  
“You’re lovely and funny and I love how you secretly love pretty things like rose gold tiaras and dresses. I love that you’re shy but you’re so passionate about your job, and I love that you like my dumb texts and snaps.” Louis had slowed down by then, running out of steam the longer he ranted. He blinked back his frustrated, embarrassed tears, turning to look at the ceiling. “I’m mad that you snogged some other bloke because I want to be the only bloke you’re snogging, alright? That’s why I care. I’ve got a big fat dumb fucking crush on you, Marcel. I don’t know what to do about it, but there it all is.”   
  
Louis finished his speech and slouched back over to the door, intent on unlocking it and darting out the door and to his car and then driving to another country, perhaps. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye before he’d even touched the lock, and then Marcel’s fingers were closing around one of his wrists.   
  
“I like you too,” Marcel blurted out. He paused before speaking again, cheeks as red as Louis felt like his own probably were. His eyes darted around for a moment before settling somewhere on the floor. “I’ve – uhm – I’ve liked you since we started working together. Way before you asked me to go to the wedding with you.”   
  
“You didn’t,” Louis said. Marcel just slammed his eyes shut and nodded jerkily. “Why?”   
  
“You – you care so much,” Marcel stammered. “About your drama students and your GSA students, and your family, now that I’ve heard you talk about them and seen you with them. You’ve got such a huge heart and you’re so generous and caring. It’s hard not to want to be on the receiving end of some of that attention.” Marcel flushed, shrugging one shoulder and dimpling a little as he added, “Also, I’m sure you’re well aware of what your face looks like.”   
  
That had to be the weirdest come on Louis had ever heard, but it was by far the best one. Then Louis realized – “Shit. I’ve been awful to you. Thinking I didn’t like you back while we pretended to date was probably torture. I’m so, so sorry I did that to you. I wish I’d seen it, or told you sooner, or someth-“   
  
“God, Louis, don’t apologize,” Marcel pleaded. “These months pretending to be your boyfriend have been the best of my life. Honestly. You’re a great fake boyfriend.” He paused, and became fidgety, staring even more steadfastly at the floor and shrinking in on himself. “And I – uhm – I really knew what I was getting into when you asked me to be your fake boyfriend. At first I… thought you were asking me out for real. Like, to be your actual date to the wedding. I was so disappointed when you explained that we just had to pretend, but I still wanted to be with you so badly, even if it was just fake. And I’m sorry, I know that’s probably really weird and creepy, and I can understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore or pretend to date me, but-“   
  
Louis put a stop to Marcel’s self-deprecating tirade by slipping his hand out of Marcel’s grip where he’d still been holding it. He instead took Marcel’s hand in his, slotting their fingers together. He ducked his head until he could get Marcel to look him in the eye, then smiled at him. “Marce. You’ve been a great pretend boyfriend, too. You’re the only person I’ve been close to in a really really long time, and now that I know how sweet and lovely you are, I don’t regret asking you.”   
  
“Really?” Marcel asked, eyes magnified by his glasses. They were the clearest olive green that Louis had ever seen. Louis squeezed Marcel’s hand where he held it and brought it up to his lips. He pressed a soft kiss to Marcel’s knuckles, and he could feel the full body shudder Marcel gave at the action.   
  
Louis took a deep breath. “Marcel,” he began, a little shaky. Marcel let out a nervous giggle, which made Louis’ nerves settle. “Would you do me the honour of being my date to my sister’s wedding as my real-definitely-not-pretend official boyfriend?”   
  
“Oh, Louis,” Marcel sighed, lashes fluttering and Louis could tell he was nearly swooning. “Of course.”   
  
Louis pulled Marcel into his arms then, hugging him tight around the waist. Marcel returned the embrace, but before long he was practically vibrating in Louis’ arms, hopefully from happiness and excitement.   
  
“Can we kiss now please?” Marcel asked. “I’ve been dreaming of kissing you for so long, and with your permission I would like to finally live out that fantasy.”   
  
Snorting out a laugh, Louis leaned up on his toes, pressing their lips firmly together. Marcel’s lips were soft and full, just like Louis imagined they would be. Louis squeaked when Marcel snuck him a cheeky hint of tongue, but Louis quickly caught up, nipping at Marcel’s lip. Marcel tasted like mint gum and Louis shivered when he felt Marcel’s hands come up and cup his face, thumbing at the hinge of his jaw.   
  
Marcel pulled away and backed up until he was against the edge of the table in the centre of the office. Louis hummed in approval when Marcel scooted his bum down to sit on it. It was scattered with college admissions flyers and maybe that reminder of where they were was hotter than it had any right to be.   
  
Louis stepped between Marcel’s spread knees and was just about to resume kissing him when the door burst open and in charged Niall, armed with a cow-patterned stapler as if to defend himself from attackers.   
  
“Niall,” Louis groaned.   
  
“Mr. Horan,” Marcel gasped, cheeks flaming.   
  
“Oh,” Niall said, taking in the two men before him and the compromising positions they were in. “Well this is boring. Here I was, armed and ready for a fight.” Niall gestured grandly with his stapler as if to demonstrate his prowess with his weapon. “But it’s just you two idiots, being gross and eating each other’s faces.”   
  
Louis and Marcel both were stunned into silence, so they didn’t get a single word in before Niall turned on his heel and marched back out of the office. “It’s just Tommo and Styles,” they could hear him tell someone, hopefully not a gaggle of students. “They’re not even fighting, they’re just kissing. Talk about a let down.”   
  
Marcel look terrified as he gnawed his lip anxiously, but the whole ridiculous situation combined with the deer-in-headlights look Marcel was giving him made Louis burst out laughing. He hung off of Marcel’s shoulders until he managed to get his cackling under control. Marcel wasn’t laughing with him, but he looked much less nervous and one of his dimples had even made an appearance so it couldn’t be all bad.   
  
Louis moved in to kiss Marcel again but their lips had barely brushed when they heard a knock on the door. It was still open and when they both turned toward the sound, they saw a student had stuck their head in.   
  
“Uhm – sorry to interrupt,” they stammered. “But I have an appointment? I can come back later, if you’re busy…”   
  
“No, no, Sam. You made an appointment, come on in.” Marcel made a sweeping motion to encourage the student to enter the office and they did, but their eyes darted between Louis and Marcel in confusion and suspicion. Marcel turned to Louis and gave him an obvious once-over. “Don’t you have lunch duty this period, Mr. Tomlinson?”   
  
The absolute tease. When Louis got him alone next, Marcel was going to get it. (‘It’ being the shag of his life.)   
  
Louis left the guidance office with a wink once he was sure that Sam wouldn’t see, then sauntered out and went back to his own job. He got his revenge by texting Marcel filthy things all through his prep period until Marcel was begging Louis to take him home after school to make good on all of his promises.   
  
Louis would have to bail on another lads night with the boys. Oh well. They were always saying he needed to get laid.

**Author's Note:**

> soooooo there may or may not be a smutty epilogue on the way for this.........


End file.
